


course correction

by goldcarnations



Category: Community (TV)
Genre: Age Difference, Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Enemies to Lovers, F/M, Fluff and Humor, Mild Sexual Content, Resolved Sexual Tension, Vaginal Fingering, not really enemies to be honest more like indignant and horny acquaintances
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-05
Updated: 2020-12-05
Packaged: 2021-03-09 20:35:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27892435
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldcarnations/pseuds/goldcarnations
Summary: Those gigantic blue eyes are making him nauseous again, like he’s gotten vertigo or just still has that truly debilitating hangover.It’s probably the latter.
Relationships: Annie Edison/Jeff Winger
Comments: 6
Kudos: 96





	course correction

**Author's Note:**

> hilarious how i wrote most of this in the summer and then i could not bring myself to write a single word while i was at university and then i scraped up the rest of this in one night (tonght)! apologies if this is rough because i know it is.
> 
> age difference is a tag because jeff has a full on midlife crisis tm here so it's a Thing

Jeff learns the hard way just how unexpected midlife crises are when they hit him.

Of course, he never saw it coming when he got fired from his law firm in the city, nor did he expect his fortieth birthday to be as dark and miserable as it was. He certainly didn’t foresee himself realizing just how empty and lonely his house was, nor did he predict to be drunkenly buying a one-way plane ticket to the other side of the country.

So it all feels rather unprecedented when he moves into a two bedroom apartment by himself in the next month. Or maybe it feels more pitiful, really, when he spends approximately a quarter of his energy unpacking and the rest of his energy the same day getting dangerously, hysterically drunk on pinot gris like a middle-aged soccer mom and _Jesus Christ_ he’s too fucking old for this.

That night, he leans back and considers his new living space in his comfortable, warm, disorienting drunken stupor. Maybe he should put up baroque-era wallpaper or repaint the walls a depressing, uninspired beige. Maybe he should remodel the whole apartment to look like a retirement home and let the walls close in on him before he rots to death. After all, it _is_ his life’s trajectory. Why not speed up the process? What the fuck is he waiting for, exactly?

Jeff considers the lip of the bottle after a long gulp. The trajectory is, decidedly, not looking great for him at the moment. 

But that’s a problem for the next day. And then the day after, and then the next day after that.

He tips his head back to finish off the rest of the wine.

He has a visitor the next morning.

A girl stands on his doorstep, dressed sensibly in khakis and a mild lavender blouse and a smile entirely too perky and bright for nine in the morning. 

She’s holding a plate of cookies.

“Ah, no thanks,” Jeff says gruffly when he opens the door. “Not looking to buy.”

He moves backward by a centimeter and she abruptly sweeps an unfocused, urgent hand at him, as if she’s afraid that he’ll close the door. “Wait! No! I’m just here to welcome you into the neighborhood—er, apartment complex.” Her face lights up into an anxious grin. “I made these for you.”

He stares back, nonplussed and a little annoyed. He wants to be more upset, but there's something about her demeanor that stops him in his tracks. She’s clearly got this very naive, doe-eyed act that catches him off balance. All eyelashes, and a bubblegum hyperactivity manifesting itself in fidgeting. He’s not entirely sure he appreciates all of it, or even is capable of tolerating it.

She's pretty.

She's _young_.

It’s really too early for this shit.

“Who are you?”

“I’m Annie,” she says. “Annie Edison. I live in 5C, right down the hall. Five doors down, actually.”

“Is that right.”

Her eyebrows stretch briefly upward in that way where he’s supposed to offer his name now.

“I’m, uh, Jeff. Winger.”

“Jeff Winger,” she repeats. Her voice is so high and deliberate and song-like that it feels as though she’s mocking it, but her smile has widened again and she’s smiling at him from under her eyelashes, so that’s probably not it. “Well, it’s nice to meet you, Jeff.”

“It’s nice to meet you too.”

She doesn’t move. Neither of them do for a moment. 

The plate stays firmly put in her arms.

He heaves a long-suffering sigh, and the girl’s eyebrows go up again, in an involuntary and very different way than the first time, which is, admittedly, entertaining to watch.

“So _these_ look _great_ ,” he says finally, because what the fuck else is he supposed to say.

“Thanks!”

“You made them yesterday?”

“I made them this morning.”

He blanches. Checks his watch. 9:05 am. “You— _when_ did you get up exactly?”

“Um, I slept in a little, but—seven. I think.”

“You _slept in_. Till _seven_.”

She stiffens at this, like _this_ is the part she’s now taking offense to. As if he hasn’t, admittedly, been a dick this whole time. “Yes. I like to start my day early.”

Jeff squints at her. There’s something grating about just how demure she is, all prim and neat, a measured distance away from him in his doorway. How shiny and perfect and new she is. How offensively _inoffensive_ she looks carrying that goddamn plate of cookies. She looks like a Jo-Ann store personified. Like glitter and ribbon.

His head spins a little faster.

He focuses on the cookies.

“What, uh, flavor is that?” he asks. “What are those?”

Her dark, precise eyebrows draw together briefly.

“Um,” she says, her bright expression finally rippling for the first time, flickering once, like she’s the one who has no idea what’s happening now. “It’s—they’re oatmeal raisin cookies. My grandmother’s recipe. They’re award-winning, actually, well, assuming I made them correctly, ha ha.”

The ends of her sentences turn up like a question.

“Mm,” he says, even though he hates oatmeal raisin, even though he couldn’t care less about her grandmother. “That’s great.”

She visibly relaxes in front of him at that response. 

The patient, obliging beam plastered to her face softens into something less nauseating and more—expectant. Like she’s waiting for something from him. Like she wants a proper reaction, a reciprocation of emotions. A connection of sorts. A promise. 

A _future_.

Those gigantic blue eyes are making him nauseous again, like he’s gotten vertigo or just still has that truly debilitating hangover. 

It’s probably the latter.

“I have a nut allergy,” he says finally.

He slams the door on her before he hears her protest, “But there aren’t any nuts in this!” and doesn’t open the door afterward. Then he stumbles to the bathroom and throws up for the first time into his new toilet. 

All in a day’s work. 

She’s at his door again the next morning.

“Good morning Jeff! Hope you’re having a great start to your day,” she says, still as perky as yesterday, although now noticeably straining the muscles in her face to smile at him. 

“I’m fantastic.”

Her smile widens to a beam, elastic and obliging. “Wonderful.”

There’s a cashmere sweater carefully tied around her shoulders and she’s holding a large ceramic casserole dish that smells strongly of cinnamon.

“I baked pie,” she explains, unprompted. She barrels over any silence with an intense, determined effort, like she’s genuinely allergic to it. “No nuts this time. Not that there were any nuts the last time but, you know, _for sure_ this time.” She dips her chin to examine her dish. “The casserole dish is because, well, I don’t usually make pie.”

“And you had to make pie?”

“Yes?”

“Not...casserole.”

“No.”

“And you couldn’t find maybe—I don’t know—a smaller tin? Perhaps?”

She falters. “You—I thought you would _appreciate_ the extra. Or at least pretend to.”

He can’t help his smile at the sound of incredulity seeping into her remark.

“At least now I can eat it slowly over the next five years,” he says wryly. “Or maybe I’ll just use this to feed an impoverished village in a third world country.”

Her mouth twitches once, as if betraying grudging acknowledgement of his joke, but stays stubbornly tight. 

Lucky for him, he’s sober enough today to appreciate her tortured reactions.

“So this is something you do, huh?” he thinks out loud, giving her another once over. “You knock on doors? Bake something three times your body weight and leave them for unsuspecting new tenants like you’re Santa?”

She frowns. “That’s an odd way of describing a housewarming gift.”

“You’re oddly into getting to know your neighbors.”

“I’m not—this is normal!”

He cocks his head. “And what are you doing talking to me, anyway? Shouldn’t you be trying to, I don’t know, make friends that are more… your age?”

“ _What_?”

Are you some kid who ran away from her parents? College student living off campus? Can you vote?”

Her face rapidly shifts into something so affronted he wonders if he should be ashamed.

“For your information, I’ve graduated college. I work in forensics.”

“Impressive.”

“And—and I’m not obligated to _explain myself_ to you.”

“I’m just not really getting your whole...deal.”

“My _deal_ is hardly your business.”

“On the contrary, your deal is being shoved into my face every morning on my doorstep at an ungodly hour.”

She turns pink. “So is your deal openly antagonizing any sign of welcome?”

“Right now, it’s dealing with someone who could very well pass off as a girl scout. And probably is one.” He considers her. “Were those cookies for sale yesterday?”

Sputtering, she asks, “Do I _look_ like a girl scout?”

He snorts. “Is that question rhetorical?”

She opens her mouth, closes it, then shakes her head vigorously to herself as if she’s better than this. This conversation. Talking to Jeff. She probably is, so he derives from it more amusement than anything else.

“Anyway,” she says, with finality. “I just thought. Well. I came today because I think we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, and I wanted to check in on you—”

“How generous of you.”

“—and figure out...how exactly we got off on the wrong foot.”

For maybe the fifth time, Jeff studies her. Tilts his head. Gives her one last once over, and notices the way she draws herself even straighter, all defiant, as if she thinks that this has become some sort of game about posturing and image. 

Which—yeah. Sure.

It’s not supposed to be, but there’s no harm in keeping up the charade.

“Ah, yeah, I was thinking that too.” Jeff says, deadpan. “You think it was the cookies?”

The smile slides off her mouth. The line between her eyebrows deepens. 

It’s funny.

It’s _cute_.

Jeff smirks.

He could get used to this.

He finds out about the mixer the next day.

It's advertised on a bright pink flyer that’s on his doorstep, a little pathetic, a little flimsy, all shiny and well-meaning bravado. The font is a benign, inoffensive, bubble-lettered atrocity. There’s _clipart_. He doesn’t even need to see the apartment number to know that Annie Edison is the one hosting it. 

He nearly steps on it on his way out of his apartment, but then he picks it up and—

He thinks about it. 

Contemplates it.

He didn't come here to make friends. 

But clearly that doesn’t matter to Annie Edison. Clearly this woman is making an intense effort to get to know the people in his building and it isn't exactly what he envisioned his stay here to look like. And he couldn’t possibly have any business 

So he studies the crisp edges of the cardstock and flounders for a moment. Friday night? he was thinking of just spending it alone. Drinking scotch. Maybe jerking off by himself. 

The embarrassment at this thought curls hot in his stomach. It makes him feel old and tired in a way he definitely shouldn't, and then the walls are closing in on him again. Fuck. Is this what his life has come to? 

He stares again at the flyer. Friday at 7pm. 

Okay. Fine. He can swing it. 

It is, admittedly, a good party.

It’s a grown up party. A _put together_ party. A party clearly organized by someone who cares about shit like streamers and champagne flutes and specially decorated charcuterie boards with perfectly arranged wheels of brie and fancy crackers. Under normal circumstances, he would be charmed. Maybe mildly impressed.

He doesn’t really give a shit though.

He wants to find the hostess.

He pushes through mingling guests, his eyes searching for her until they land on her, dressed in a green blouse and a little black skirt that looks a tasteful inch above sensible. 

He stands frozen for a moment. There’s a quick moment that feels like a couple years long, when the adrenaline pumping through him head to toe slows time. Warps the minute that it takes her to glance up and recognize Jeff from across the room.

A complicated series of expressions ripples across her face, and the reaction is so fast that it’s almost unreadable. 

Well. At least it’s better than he hoped for. 

“You made it,” she says.

“I’m five doors over,” he deadpans. “It wasn’t exactly a trip.”

Her smile is tight. “Just decided to pop by tonight? Make an appearance?”

He shrugs. “Got nothing better to do. So, I guess, why not?”

She flicks him a glance, sidelong and furious. It’s fun. The riling up, the jokes, the teasing, all of it.

“I don’t call people names often,” she says, “but you act like a douchebag.”

The directness of this remark is mostly amusing, but it's also kind of refreshing, delivered point-blank, all matter-of-fact. She tell him this as if it's something to be stipulated. Which it is.

“Precious,” he answers, then thoughtfully, “not wrong.”

“But why?” she presses out of the blue, with a forceful determination that catches him momentarily off balance. 

“Pardon?”

“Why are you so unwilling to get to know people here? If you really didn’t want to interact with anyone here, I don’t get why you...moved here?”

The way Annie says it makes the question so innocuous. No expectation or malice or trapdoors that he could fall into and get himself stuck in. Jeff stops and considers how he would have asked that question if he were in her shoes, and there’s decidedly no way he could have executed that in the same unassuming, artless manner. 

Her blue eyes are bright on his. 

He considers his answers.

He could be dry. He could be so devastatingly flippant that she would turn three shades pinker and probably chase him out of her apartment in front of everyone.

Then he watches the line of her mouth soften.

“I’m just someone going through a midlife crisis in the form of a transition period,” Jeff says. “As in… I’m transitioning out of a shitty neighborhood with a house that was too big for just me.”

This time she’s the one who is caught off guard, which is nice to see after making a confession that leaves him feeling strangely naked. She takes a moment just to stand there, her eyes narrowed, clearly making calculations about the cost benefit of taking him at his word. 

He almost starts to regret saying it when finally she blows out a breath. 

“That sounds like...a practical midlife crisis. More like a midlife assessment?”

“Well, I was told that a motorcycle was a bad investment.”

“Probably, yeah,” she agrees. 

The air between them feels...pliant. Not quite electric—he’d long since grown out of that. But like he could reach out between the two of them and feel something tangible. He can sense it in the way she’s darting this glance at him now, all searching, less suspicious, more...curious. 

Which—well. 

He can work with that.

“So you wanna give me a tour of the place?” he asks, nonchalant. “Or something?”

Her eyes go wide.

Then something—small, unsure, _secret_ —pulls at the edges of her mouth.

He’s certain that under normal circumstances she would seriously disapprove of hooking up in a bathroom during a house party, let alone one that she’s hosting, but she ends up the one who shoves him into her tiny bathroom not even five minutes later. She’s the one who hops on the bathroom counter and pulls him by the collar. She’s the one that guides his hands below her waistline.

He really doesn’t mind it, though. There’s a certain trashy fun in the fact that she pulls him into the bathroom rather than her own bedroom.

Before long, he’s got her skirt bunched around her hips, blouse partially unbuttoned to expose the lacy cups of her bra. It’s certainly not an offensive sight while he’s got three fingers shoved up the velvet-hot clutch of her cunt. She’s astonishingly tight. 

Even better, extraordinarily _receptive_. 

“You make any baked goods for the party?” he asks into the shell of her ear, keeping his voice low. “Any more of your grandma’s cookies?”

He curls his fingers inside and she bucks against him.

“No,” she gasps, her breath hitching. “No, I didn’t—oh, _Jeff_.”

Fuck, that’s hot. He has to grit his own teeth from growling in her ear.

“So what did you make this time?”

She lifts her face to look at him, cheeks stained rosy red, her mouth parted.

“What?”

“What did you make.”

He flicks his thumb over her clit.

“Brownies!” Annie sobs, collapsing against him. “I—I made brownies.”

“Mm,” he says. She’s panting in these thin little breaths that are doing absolutely unspeakable things to his self control, and it takes herculean effort to keep his voice low. “Sounds _delectable_.”

Her mouth forms a perfect _o_ as she comes over his fingers, shaking and mewling underneath him. It’s maybe the hottest thing he’s ever seen.

In the moments after she orgasms, she inhales a shaky breath and climbs off the counter. “Oh my god,” she’s saying to herself, smoothing down her already smoothed hair, scrabbling at the bra straps that had fallen around her shoulders.

The dread kicks the breath out of Jeff’s chest. Well, yeah. Of course. It was obvious that she was going to think this was a mistake. He really should’ve seen this coming a mile away—he would have been an idiot not to, especially knowing the trajectory of their relationship, which until ten minutes ago was almost creeping into slightly antagonistic territory. But then she looks up at him and she’s smiling.

She’s pink-faced and flustered. The smile is wobbly and uncertain. It reminds him a bit of the first time she showed up at his door, her eyes bright and the edges of her mouth dimpling, stretching out, tentative. 

Like she wants more. 

Like there could be more. 

Like there’s a future.

Then she ducks her head again and that smile goes into her chest, as if she’s embarrassed or bashful. He watches her pat down her dress. “You’ll call me?” she’s asking, her voice bright.

“Yeah,” Jeff manages. “I’ll see you around.”

She smiles and nods, then slips out the door back to the party. Jeff leans back and closes his eyes. He steadies himself against the counter. Inhales and exhales.

That image of her, rosy-cheeked and hopeful, tucking hair behind her ears, stays with him every time he blinks. 

It snags in his memory and lingers for the rest of the night. Like a record scratch.

A week goes by, and he doesn’t call her.

Rationalization doesn’t work nearly as well as it should. Jeff is entirely aware that, in theory, the incident at the party was a mistake. This isn’t exactly how he should be working through his internal issues with his age and the ever growing preoccupation with the fleetingness of life.

He’s not stupid. He knows he’s not supposed to want it. Her. Them. _More_. 

So he pushes that night to the back of his mind, but no matter how hard he tries the outline of all of it still sticks behind his eyes. 

It lingers. 

It _irks_. 

He blinks hard the entire rest of the week, just to make it go away, but it doesn’t work.

He catches Annie in the hallway when he’s coming back from work.

She’s leaving her apartment all dressed up, a coat draped in her arms and wrapped in something made of satin and draped across her body in the most dangerous way possible. She doesn’t even notice him gawking at first - it’s only after she’s locked her own door and made her way down the hallway does it visibly register to her that he’s there.

When she does, her mouth drops open in shock, the shape of it nearly identical to the way it parted on the night of her party, right when she came on his fingers. Exactly the way he’s been imagining it the whole past week.

The resemblance is so uncanny that it feels almost pointed. _Intentional_. As if somehow she orchestrated some elaborate scheme for them to bump into each other in the hallway, and then she could just flaunt the way she looks in that dress and let him watch her walk down the hall.

Maybe it’s punishment.

He kind of deserves it, after all.

“You’re all dressed up,” he says finally. “Going out?”

“Yeah.”

He hesitates, then ventures, “On a date?”

He watches her shoulders tense, before her mouth closes and she visibly draws herself up, eyes averted. “Yep.”

Ouch. The curt response stings more than he expects, but what exactly was he expecting here? She’s a young, beautiful, notably _single_ woman. He put his fingers inside of her and then never called. He doesn’t have a right to be hurt.

The hurt stays anyway, like the itch of a scab. He exhales on a stilted breath, finally turning toward his apartment to unlock his door. “Need anything?” he says, a little more dry than he intends to. “Toothbrush? Hairbrush? Condom?”

She freezes. 

A sharp, mean twist of satisfaction goes straight to his gut. 

“I’m fine,” he hears her grit out. 

“Well, have fun then,” he drawls. “Stay safe. You can never be too prepared.”

There’s a seething, simmering silence as Jeff deliberately nudges his keys into the lock. 

“You know,” she says finally, all quiet, as if to herself, “I don’t get _your_ deal.”

Jeff scoffs into his chest. “Yeah?”

“I don’t get why you’re such a _jerk_ about everything.”

He just turns toward her and she’s scowling at him, her arms tucked and crossed loosely under her silk-clad chest, and suddenly this thing feels so juvenile. All this toying around. 

He has an odd desire to laugh.

He doesn’t. 

“Didn’t know I was such a fascinating case study for you,” he says.

Her scowl deepens. “Don’t you dare say that, Jeff Winger.”

“Why not?”

“Don’t act like you’ve been treating me more than anything more than a case study either.”

He freezes and releases his keys. “What’s _that_ supposed to mean?”

“Don’t play stupid,” she says. “You knew exactly what you were doing when you answered the door those first few times.”

“You mean when you showed up at—at the crack of dawn? Before the sun rose? Is that what you’re referring to?”

“For your information, the sun rises at _six_ —”

“Forgive me for being a little moody that I was woken up, hungover, that _one_ time—“

“But that wasn't just it with you! You haven’t ever shown an inch of courtesy, and then you just show up at my party, and you—“ She inhales once, sharp. “It was like this is all a joke. Like you don’t even care. Which, alright. Fine. That’s—that would be fine, if you didn’t—” She pauses for a moment. “If you weren’t so…so like _this_.”

“Descriptive,” Jeff mutters without malice. Annie doesn’t even hear it.

He watches her smooth down the hem of her dress before she crosses her arms again, restless.

“And then you make all these snide comments about tonight like—like you have some sort of problem with me exercising autonomy over my own _life_ and—and _romantic trysts_ —”

“Well, maybe I do have a problem with it.”

It spills out of him before he knows what he’s saying.

Annie’s mouth snaps shut, momentarily speechless, and then she takes a furious step toward him. “With me— _exercising autonomy_ over my _own life_?”

“No— _what_? No! With—other parts of the whole thing.”

She takes another step closer to him. “Then what, Jeff? Care to share?”

He can smell her perfume now, deeply floral and even more distracting. The increasing proximity makes his head spin.

“Well,” he manages. “I think the problem I have is with the _romantic trysts_ of it all.”

She leans forward toward him, and the silk of her cowl neck slips down even further, and fucking _hell_ her breasts are _great_ and the deepening valley between them is _fantastic_ and the way her chest is rising and falling is truly and completely devastating. He wants to kill himself for looking.

“Well,” she says, her voice climbing, “I’m a consenting adult, aren’t I?”

“It’s not that.”

“Then explain what it is to me.”

His blood goes hot again. 

“And what about _friends my own age_?” Annie goads. “What happened to that little comment? When did you change your mind on that?”

“Well," he spits, "maybe I have different views now that you’re out and wasting your time with some other friend your age and have a horrible time. But it’s your life. Go ahead.”

“No, actually, I’d love to hear your rationale.”

He scoffs, then deadpan, “Really?”

“Yes, because I'm pretty sure that I’m going to have a _wonderful_ time tonight, and I don’t see why I wouldn’t.”

At this Jeff laughs fully, mirthless and disbelieving. “Right, because you’re gonna go and fuck some kid who’s gonna be too selfish to make you actually orgasm and too childish to give you head, and then you’re gonna come home and pretend that you’re somehow satisfied by that. Like that kid gives a shit? Like they could make you feel as good as I—”

He stops.

Annie has that look in her eyes again. That glint of vitriol, extra vicious under her dark eyelashes.

“As you what?” she asks, her voice stilted a pitch higher. “As you what, Jeff? As _you_ could?”

The words send a jolt of adrenaline squarely to the center of his chest and suddenly he’s acutely aware of the direction of the conversation. Yes, he wants to say. Yes, like I could. 

But what’s stopping him?

Instead, he mashes the palm of his hand to his forehead and says, “Okay, hang on, I think we should lower our voices—”

“No, _you_ hang on,” Annie interrupts, and now she’s practically flush against him, her chin tilted vertical and looking the smallest he’s ever seen her. “I’m going on a date because you didn’t call. And, for the record, this whole time you’ve been an—an _ass_ to me, so I _really_ don’t owe you anything!”

“Of course not! I know that.”

This answer clearly stuns her. She’s apoplectic for a few moments, before crying out, “So what’s the problem exactly?”

It’s a good question.

He struggles to find the words.

“The problem is that—well—you’re wearing this dress,” he says, but Jesus _Christ_ his mouth is failing him—isn’t he supposed to be good at talking? That’s his whole schtick, right? “And you’re going on a date with someone else, and I—I can’t get over this _feeling_ that I’m so—”

Jeff doesn’t finish his sentence. 

Truthfully, he doesn’t know how to end it. 

Annie doesn’t seem to notice that he’s stopped rambling. Her head is dropped to her chest to do that little head shake again, the one she did when she first showed up at his door. It’s so painfully adorable that he wants to gouge his eyes out. 

“Jeff,” she says slowly, “you clearly have several things you need to figure out.”

He throws his hands up. “Alright, like what?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” she snaps. “How about whether or not you want to have sex with me?”

Jeff chokes. “What?”

“Are you going to have sex with me or not?” she demands.

She’s dangerous like this. All fire in a little satin dress. It’s so much worse than the picture he had the entire week before, because he can’t blink hard or do away with the image of the cowl neck slipping further and further down, because he can’t do anything except move closer, his eyes drifting to her mouth, which is a positively agonizing sight.

Because before he knows it, he’s kissing her so ruthlessly that he surprises himself.

When he pulls back, her eyes are wide again. That deer in headlights look, right before it gets hit by a car. It’s fitting, since he feels like he’s going a thousand miles an hour.

Her mouth pursues for a moment, like her body is still hanging onto the kiss. 

He almost regrets it, then—

She arches a brow at him and says, thoughtfully, “I think I need to make a call.”

Annie wakes up later than Jeff does the next morning and pads into the kitchen in just one of his button down shirts, glossy hair only in a bit of a disarray and her blue eyes a little more dreamy than he’s ever seen. Her gaze wanders all around the walls of his apartment.

“When did you wake up?” she asks after a while, approaching the counter where he’s scrambling egg whites on the stove.

“A little past seven,” he says.

Her eyes go wide and impressed. 

“So you were up at the 'crack of dawn'?” She makes air quotes.

“What can I say. I’m a changed man after meeting you.”

Her mouth slants upward, now so full of startled joy that he can’t remember why he didn’t call or text her a week earlier. “Oh, so the sex was that good?”

“It definitely didn’t disappoint.”

She steps away from the counter and starts wandering around the room, studying the layout. The boxes are still only halfway unpacked and his work desk is mostly in disarray, but with the sunlight filtering through the windows and flickering on the cardboard and the wood and the outline of her calves, all of it looks so much more romantic than bleak. The room looks infinitely better with her in it.

“You should move that bookshelf,” she’s saying suddenly, spinning toward him.

Jeff blinks. “What?”

She points. “You should move it to that side. Maybe the room won’t look as cramped, you know?” She flicks a look at him. “Really open up the space.”

It feels unexpected.

It feels like a _future_.

He smiles. 

“Yeah,” he says, and he’s excited for the first time, really, truly, considering the way pink is creeping into her complexion, “lots of possibilities.”

**Author's Note:**

> [my tumblr! come hang](https://shakespeareans.co.vu/)


End file.
